By the formation of the Society already mentioned, by writing and superintending this volume and other preceding publications, and by various literary exertions during the last half century, I have endeavoured to promote the cause of Topography in Wiltshire ; and in doing so have often been encouraged by your sympathy and support. For this I am bound to offer you the expression of my very sincere thanks; and with an earnest wish that you may speedily complete your projected "History of Castle Combe,"
I am,
My dear Sir,
Yours very truly,
JOHN BRITTON.
Burton Street, London. 1st September, 1847.
EDITOR'S PREFACE.
IN the "Memoir of John Aubrey", published by the Wiltshire
Topographical Society in 1845, I expressed a wish that the "NATURAL
HISTORY of WILTSHIRE", the most important of that author's unpublished
manuscripts, might be printed by the Society, as a companion volume to that
Memoir, which it is especially calculated to illustrate.
The work referred to had been then suggested to the Council of the Society by George Poulett Scrope, Esq. M.P., as desirable for publication. They concurred with him in that opinion; and shortly afterwards, through the kind intervention of the Marquess of Northampton, an application was made to the Council of the Royal Society for permission to have a transcript made for publication from the copy of the " Natural History of Wiltshire" in their possession. The required permission was readily accorded; and had not the printing been delayed by my own serious illness during the last winter, and urgent occupations since, it would have been completed some months ago.
When the present volume was first announced, it was intended to print the whole of Aubrey's manuscript; but after mature deliberation it has been thought more desirable to select only such passages as directly or indirectly apply to the county of Wilts, or which comprise information really useful or interesting in itself, or curious as illustrating the state of literature and science at the time when they were written.